Ivan Morton Niven was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

-American mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, specializing in number theory

Number theory

Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...

. He was born in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

 and was awarded his doctorate in 1938 from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. He was a member of the University of Oregon

University of Oregon

-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...

 faculty from 1947 to his retirement in 1981. He received the University of Oregon's Charles E. Johnson Award in 1981.

Niven completed the solution of most of Waring's problem

Waring's problem

In number theory, Waring's problem, proposed in 1770 by Edward Waring, asks whether for every natural number k there exists an associated positive integer s such that every natural number is the sum of at most s kth powers of natural numbers...

 in 1944. This problem, based on a 1770 conjecture by Edward Waring

Edward Waring

Edward Waring was an English mathematician who was born in Old Heath , Shropshire, England and died in Pontesbury, Shropshire, England. He entered Magdalene College, Cambridge as a sizar and became Senior wrangler in 1757. He was elected a Fellow of Magdalene and in 1760 Lucasian Professor of...

, consists of finding the smallest number g(n) such that every positive integer is the sum of at most g(n) nth powers of positive integers. David Hilbert

David Hilbert

David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...

 had proved the existence of such a g(n) in 1909; Niven's work established the value of g(n) for all but finitely many values of n.

He was president of the Mathematical Association of America

Mathematical Association of America

The Mathematical Association of America is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists;...

 (MAA) from 1983 to 1984. He received the MAA Distinguished Service Award in 1989.

He died in 1999 in Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon

Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...

.

Niven numbers and Niven's constant

Niven's constant

In number theory, Niven's constant, named after Ivan Niven, is the largest exponent appearing in the prime factorization of any natural number n "on average"...

 are named in his honor; also, in 2000, the asteroid 12513 Niven

12513 Niven

12513 Niven is a main-belt asteroid discovered on April 27, 1998 by P. G. Comba at Prescott.- External links :*...

, discovered in 1998, was named after him. He has an Erdős number

Erdos number

The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between a person and mathematician Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.The same principle has been proposed for other eminent persons in other fields.- Overview :...

of 1.

Popular works by Niven

• (1959) Mathematics: A house built on sand?
• (1960) An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers
• Diophantine Approximations
• Mathematics of Choice
• Numbers Rational and Irrational